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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/28884177">the issue of evidence</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/whateverliesunsaid/pseuds/whateverliesunsaid'>whateverliesunsaid</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>pictured: love in the complex world of corporative relations [5]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Succession (TV 2018)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>F/M, OH MY GOD THEYRE ALL CRIMINALS, theyre all criminals</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2021-01-20</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-01-20</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-13 08:15:30</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>2,156</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/28884177</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/whateverliesunsaid/pseuds/whateverliesunsaid</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>they've all done something unspeakable — more or less.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Gerri Kellman/Roman "Romulus" Roy, Siobhan "Shiv" Roy/Tom Wambsgans, Willa Ferreyra/Connor Roy</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>pictured: love in the complex world of corporative relations [5]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/2112606</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>2</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>5</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>the issue of evidence</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>I.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p>She’s all honeycomb hex on the stage, all words come off sweet when she speaks them and turns into poison on anyone else’s lips; Cassandra was loved by the sun, too, before apollonian pride turned her foreseen into jokes. It doesn’t matter if what a woman says comes true if no one ever takes her word on it. Shiv switches her legs around, comfortably dynamic and alive in way only politicians and actors know how to be, and her hair flicks over her shoulder, a draping of gold unveiling her youthfully wicked smile.</p><p>Somebody told her, once, that she smiled like she had a fun secret adventure she could take you on if you knew how to keep your lips shut. Tom, sat at the fourth row up, once felt as if he’d give anything to come aboard her ship and be sailed off into her world; now, he knows a few things about the death pits it hides, the way monsters lurk into the shadowy corners of the Roy world. The corporate world. Morals, fuck off, everybody’s got those— the stomach to chew them down and spit something gilded and valuable out… now that’s something.</p><p>If he weren’t so sad, all the time, so completely guilty of crimes yet uncharged he would leave. He would take her hand and pull her with him; except that the spotlights hit her clavicles just right when she wears that blue shirt she knows he adores and she says something charmingly cutthroat that has the whole floor laughing.</p><p>The floor’s mediator calls another audience question and a short woman— with a hoodie that teeters on the edge of fashionable and honestly broke— walks to the mic with a small piece of paper in hand. With unwavering peacefulness, she asks: “Shiv Roy, how can you endorse this company knowing it’s history of violence against women after making a name for yourself in DC as a women’s rights advisor?” something of a hush falls over the auditorium as everyone seems to lean just a little bit closer— like eavesdroppers on a private conversation in the subway, voyeurs the lot of them.</p><p>His breath catches in his throat, a hitch of something in him that knows the price of every word spoken on this matter and how, now, she cannot simply evade the question posed. <em>This may cost us everything, Shiv, this may fuck me over completely</em>. It’d be an opportunity to deepen the knife on his back, if she were anyone else, but even Shiv has her limits to how vicious her love can be— he hopes, anyways.</p><p>She needs no recovery time, only bites her lip for a second to feign it, something only his trained eye can spot. In she draws the calculated breath, “Well, you see—”</p><p>Hope has never earned him a thing, he finds out, but Shiv’s silver tongue can overturn wars. He can sense Greg’s prying gaze on him, always wondering what lies beyond the façade of Tom and Shiv’s marriage, silently speculating like the rest of them. It's not as if his assistance slash friend doesn't already know too much <em>or</em> hasn't a tendency to blab.</p><p>Bitterly, he smiles a good <em>honest</em> grin, a proud husband’s gaze lending itself to his trained eye. Something deep in him wants to let it be the truth, just choose it and live it, unbothered and unquestionably. That Shiv never cheated on him, God, please, let that be. That he wasn’t deliberately thrown into the death pit, let it be. Let it be so. <em>Let it be so forever</em>.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p>There's so much lying going around anyway, why not this, too? <em>Let's all agree to believe this, only for today</em>.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p>II.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p>Some poet wrote that fake gods request flowers and wine—real ones require blood but he’s absolutely sure he never actually read it. Often doesn’t, as a rule, and still, Roman doesn’t mind being a phony god. He was never any good for miracle working, anyway.</p><p>And you haven’t lived a life until you shivered yourself sick in a bathroom at your sister’s wedding reception, the image of an explosion you caused seared onto your brain no matter how hard you spilled your insides into the pristine sink. Later, someone you vaguely know from college is going to mindlessly fuck some relation they know from summer camp and not bother to learn their names, unknowing of his horror.</p><p>Still, his hands shake fiercely in his loose grip of the cool tile beneath his hand, his phone screen showcasing the mushroom of destruction he has left an email trail behind, all the way from Japan to his doorstep. It is not the promise of jail time that scares him, but his father’s gaze, his brother’s disappointment, his mother’s deepening derision. Proving them all right, that he <em>is</em> a dipshit after all, a nobody like Connor— a do nothing child, standing in the shadow of his giant patriarch. Forever castrated by lack of sunshine.</p><p>He slumps on the floor by the door, his knees tight to his chest, his head pressed against his knees so hard it hurts. He can’t cry, doesn’t think he’s physically able to anymore, but he can press his eyes against his knuckles so hard they sting enough to give it a kick. To make it a worthwhile show to no one in particular, only the reflection left as witness to his disgrace. In his head, he counts down the seconds he can lurk in there before someone comes knocking at the door, whispering and speculating beyond. He has more 400 seconds to go when a gentle knock disturbs his count and he doesn’t reply, waiting for the presence on the other side to drift away to another bathroom in the goddamn castle. The shadow sneaking beneath the door stands there patiently instead, another knock ringing softly before he hears Gerri’s voice calling his name.</p><p>“Rome?” she sounds conversational even conspiratorially whispering through the door. A stone cold bitch, as he once put it, which now feels like a memory from forever ago. “There’s canapés for you.” There are no canapés, of course, and they both know Tom or Shiv would ever serve anything so remotely middle class, so Roman knows to push his body up by invisible strings, like a puppet, and open the door, pushing his hand in his pockets. Waiting for the news she has coded for his ears, like he is five and she is helping him get away with skipping school or weed possession.</p><p>No one even dares say the word murder, but he knows it’s hanging by a thread on top of his head, like Damocles’ sword. He sniffs, pushing his shoe against the beautifully worn floor where generations would’ve walked upon hadn’t this whole place been remodeled only five years prior. “I hate those.”</p><p>Gerri doesn’t mind him, as usual, and her champagne dress glimmers like an understated beacon; he wishes Tabitha had worn something like that instead, but doesn’t dare say it out loud, even though the general counsel knows many far more damning things about him. There’s always so many more, he knows, so many more horrible things that would make a beautiful thing disgusting hiding under his sheen.</p><p>They stood in the dark patch between the open windows— from where the moonlight sneaked into the reception— and the bathroom where he exiled himself in, she scooted over so she was almost completely enveloped in the gloom, only the blue light coming off her screen warning of her presence at all. She scrolled up her phone screen and turned it so he could see it, “I think you’re going to love these, actually.”</p><p>She knows he did it. She can prove it. They all do— but none of them are legally able to do it. Thank fuck for nondisclosure agreements and release of liabilities, God bless the tiny print! When he reads those words, something thick with fear comes undone inside of him, a release like a wave and Roman almost kisses her, almost twirls her around, and almost shouts some profanities into the room.</p><p>However, he had done enough for the night.</p><p>Thus, he settles for coming out of the darkness smiling ever so devilishly. Rich boy swagger dripping off of him. He will make it through the night. Gerri’s screen turns dark and she lingers, looking out the window to the balcony where many tables are set, romantically looking over the lake. From there on out, she knows, it is all about <em>optics</em>. They’re going to be alright— at least <em>she</em> is; always.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p>III.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p>Greg paces back and forth in his spacious new pad, courtesy of one Kendall Roy and wonders where golden laurels might lead him, if maybe he made a rookie mistake to go so eagerly to the pot of water. It’s hardly that Kendall is untrustworthy, but rather that most people aren’t above being absolute dicks in his new world— as Tom had expertly put it: <em>morals? shut up, Greg, you don’t have fucking morals!</em></p><p>As he later figured out, none of them do.</p><p>The more unscrupulous their actions are, the greater their gains can be. His mom had never warned him about how big of a gamble corporate world was. How much <em>optics</em> mattered. He glanced at the living room, where under the table he had taped the secret file for the time being. He kept juggling them around, unsure of where would be an optimal space given that he didn’t actually have a safe. Or, rather, had one— but Kendall had never given him the passcode for it and he never wanted to rouse suspicions by asking. He never really thought of the women, the ones who drowned or had their mouths stuffed with money until they were shut. Instead, he thought about what it would mean for the others when they heard of what he did, when he finally <em>did</em> anything, provided he wasn't caught or stolen. It felt as if the d day, as they called it, might never arrive at all— and so he sat and <em>waited</em>.</p><p>Much of the gamble was about moving silently, being inconspicuous. Two things the cousin had never been particularly gifted at, according to his mom, teachers and coworkers galore. Sometimes, laying in bed, he’d listen out for the sound of helicopters droning around NYC and speculate how long it would take for one of them to land on his building’s top, calculate how long he had to run for them and incinerate the files. Where and how he would do it, how he would excuse his actions, what he should say to them. Should he seek more files, more favors? Every kindness he stretches out must be twisted into something useful at some point. Should he check his options with his mom again?</p><p>Make himself a witness to more humiliation with his friendly allure? Pad a thicker landing?</p><p>So far, all he had was pile of lies— all of them connected haphazardly and with a goal yet unclear. He knew that an opportunity to use this leverage would only show up out of the blue and he had to make a run for it.</p><p>Sometimes the worry keeps him tossing and turning all night so when their morning shift rolls around, he looks dazed and new; as if no time had passed at all since that thanksgiving from whence he came. A clean slate of a face for his boss and a parade of people to talk mindlessly to, over and about. Sometimes, if it’s really really bad, Tom even goes as far as to notice it. “I take the taffy machine you use to stretch your languid body kept you up all night?” He jabs, though it’s one of his kinder ones and Greg is almost grateful for it.</p><p>“Uh— Yeah, dude, something like that.”</p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p>IV.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p>If you're rich enough to attend auctions regularly, you get used to the thrill of buying fairly easily— to Connor, that's when a slightly deeper thrill came into being. Easily, with barely any glamour or real acting necessary, sometimes Connor would just reach into an expensive trinket (say, an original cutlery set that was used to serve Mussolini— a real collector's item!) and pull something menial out of it. A fork, a bread knife, a small napkin. With barely any affection at all, would push it into his pocket and keep moving until he was safely away. Sometimes, pulling into the ranch's driveway he would feel almost giddy to have made it. A nail of a mummy stuck to his coat pocket, a button from Hitler's favorite coat. "Thabs, I'm here!" he would announce from the door.</p><p>"Hey, babe!" she would call back, her voice distant and the click clacking of her typing on her laptop ringing through the spacious home. "What did you get me?"</p><p> </p><p><em>Nothing much</em>, he would say. <em>Nothing at all.</em></p><p> </p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>believe it or not this was, at some point, inspired by taylor swift's no body no crime</p></blockquote></div></div>
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